An odd little box

Here’s an odd little box that might get those creative juices flowing for the upcoming Halloween season. [Jeremy’s] creepy glowing box has a pair of ping-pong ball eyes which diffuse the red light from a pair of LEDs. Both the lid and they eyes move, and the whole thing is set up for wireless control.

The majority of the parts came from a toy RC helicopter that [Jeremy] had sitting in his junk bin. After close inspection he found that the electronics included to motor drivers for the two rotors, as well as two servo motors which worked to steer the aircraft. One of those servos has been repurposed to aim the gaze of they eyes left and right, the other servo is used to lift and close the lid of the box. This leaves the two motor controllers, one of which switches the LEDs on and off. The other doesn’t really have a purpose yet. He tried adding one wheel to the box, but turning that on just makes the whole thing crash to the floor. Check out what he’s done so far in the clip after the fold.

– I think it would benefit from a dark piece of cloth or something surrounding the eyes – so when the lid opens, you see a “something with glowing eyes” emerging, not just a set of disembodied eyes.

– I would consider mounting some sort (slow!) “scraping” mechanism in the box – I think being able to hear something trying to gnaw its way out of the box when it’s not open would enhance the effect.

– This is a bit far fetched, but I wonder if one could mount some sort of heavy inertial mechanism inside the box, so it could roll from side to side in some sort of jerky tumbling motion. It would of course have an accelerometer/gyro to know when it is “upright”, to do the “opening” part… ;)

@Max – Thx for the suggestions! “The Box” isn’t quite done yet, so I’m definitely open to new ideas.

Oddly enough I tried to use an inertial device to spin the head around. It was loosely based on this: http://www.jcopro.net/2011/03/07/the-angular-momentum-roller/ . I don’t think the mass had enough inertia to really do what I wanted. Would be pretty awesome to “roll” it around like you’re talking about…

@ Jeremy – Instead of inertia, you could use some push solenoids through the bottom of the box corners that when activated would push the bottom of the box up. It will make the box hop around like something is thrashing around inside. Look for MIB (monster in box) on the webosphere.